Teach your clients Emotional Intelligence (1 of 2)
One of the best sets of skills you can teach your clients is Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – not to be confused with Intelligence Quotient (IQ) This skill set is great for helping them develop coping skills that will benefit them immediately.
The better they are able to manage their emotions and communicate them, the better their relationships and experiences will be on a daily basis.
Photo Credit: Mait Jüriado via Compfight cc
First you want to give them some brief psychoed on what emotional intelligence is and then you want to help them develop the four different skill sets.
There are many strategies to develop these skills, so the more you have in your counseling toolbox, the better able you are to find ones that fit with your client’s preference.
In this article I will share how to define EI and some strategies for the first skills set. Next week I will give you some more strategies for teaching the other three skills sets.
Defining Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is your ability to be aware of and understand emotions in yourself and others, and then manage your behaviors and relationships.
Basically it means you know how and what you are feeling in any given moment and you also have a good understanding of how others are feeling.
Developing this highly important personal and social skill set is literally a life changer. I see the positive changes in my client’s lives every day as they develop these new skills!
When you teach your clients Emotional Intelligence, you are giving them a gift that will last them the rest of their lives – and this always feels good.
Responding instead of Reacting
By developing this skill they will be able to respond to situations in a proactive way, instead of reacting in a knee jerk fashion based on emotions.
Different levels of Emotional Intelligence
We all have different levels of EI ranging from low to high. Here is an example of the difference.
Low Emotional Intelligence Skills:
Carrie is waiting for her partner to pick her up and he is already ten minutes late. She is pacing around the house, checking her phone and looking out the window. She is thinking “Why is he always late. Clearly he doesn’t really want to spend time with me. If he thought our relationship was important he would make an effort or at least call. He’s such a jerk. I don’t even want to go anymore”. Carrie’s feeling hot and tense and full of anger. Then her partner pulls up.
How do you think Carrie will react to her partner when he arrives?
High Emotional Intelligence Skills:
Lisa is waiting for her partner to pick her up and he is already 10 minutes late. She notices that she starts to pace and is checking her phone repeatedly. She decides to take a deep breath and calm her body. Instead of jumping to conclusions, Lisa starts to think about what could be holding her partner up (traffic, work). She thinks back and recognizes that he isn’t usually late and is usually quite respectful of her time. She decides to use the extra time to read a book she has been enjoying. She decides that if she hasn’t heard from him in the next 15 minutes or so that she will call him. Then her partner pulls up.
How do you think Lisa will respond to her partner?
How we process information:
Information enters our brain and has to pass through the limbic system (where we feel) before it gets to the frontal lobe (where we think rationally). Because of this process, emotional intelligence is very important for all personal and professional experiences, as it is the foundation for many critical skills impacting everything your client’s do and say each day.
Unlike IQ, your EQ can be improved – YAY! There are four core skills sets that can be developed to increase your EQ and therefore improve the quality of your experiences and relationships. The four skill sets you can improve are:
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social Awareness
4. Relationship Management
Self-Awareness is the ability to accurately understand your own emotions and how you react across situations. Self-Management refers to your reaction, or lack of reaction, to an emotion. Social Awareness is the ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is going on with them. Relationship Management refers to your ability to use the three previous skill sets to interact successfully with others.
Strategies for developing Self-Awareness:
1. Set a timer on your Smartphone to go off every couple of hours. When it does – see what emotions are taking place and how the body is feeling them.
2. Think of an emotion that you struggle with and write down how that feeling is experienced (in the body, thought patterns, actions) at different levels of intensity.
3. Look for themes in emotions based on certain activities or people (eg: with mom or stuck in traffic). Try to recognize as soon as possible when the emotions starts every time you are in that situation.
By having a variety of strategies to teach your clients emotional intelligence, you will help them learn how to stop unhealthy patterns and have more control over their choices.
Now I want to hear from you – do you have any great strategies for developing self-awareness of what you are feeling in any given moment? I’d love to collect them all and put them together in another post. Please leave a comment and let me know.
Much Love,
Charlene
oxox